Food Sleuth And Disruptor Clang Garcia
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Clang Garcia is the food and travel host of Cignal TV's "DiscoverEats" (Photo courtesy of Clang Garcia)
Garcia’s culinary education started at home. She learned to cook from her maternal grandmother, Felicidad Gonzalez Garcia. She always tagged along to the palengke (market) to buy fresh ingredients and watched her grandma whip a range of produce into flavorsome dishes for her family and patrons.
“She had a nameless hole-in-the-wall karinderiya (a native restaurant that serves pre-cooked food) across from our house in Pasay City,” she remembers. “It had a jukebox where diners could have music by dropping a 25-centavo coin while enjoying their meals. Also, there was a chessboard for everyone to play.”
Cooking is a relational culture from home, where the best techniques, meals, and disciplines are learned. Garcia advises people to connect with relatives, asking them to teach their favorite dishes growing up. Ask the story behind each meal. Involve other family members to join the squad, documenting forgotten recipes and creating a generational cookbook. Patiently cook everything many times over until you get your elders’ approval. “That journey teaches you humility, confidence, endurance, social skills, and relationships,” she adds.
What is her favorite Pinoy food? “Tinolang manok (gingery chicken stew or soup), hands down!” she exclaims. “Every spoonful is like a warm hug that soothes the soul.” She loves the play of taste and texture of the comforting meal. Her grandmother would only cook it using a native (free range, hormone free) chicken replete with ovary, liver, gizzard, eggs, and chunks of coagulated blood studded with rice. It is a deeply flavorful meal from the long-simmering broth, the infusion of caramelized onions and ginger, the addition of green papaya, and topping with chili leaves once the fire is turned off. On the side, patis (fish sauce) is served with kalamansi (citrus fruit).
A mass-communication graduate of St. Scholastica’s College in Manila, her first job out of college was working for Mabuhay, Philippine Airlines’ in-flight magazine. She was in charge of revenue generation and print production. A venturesome job, she traveled across the islands, opening her eyes to a bigger world: eating myriad dishes she never grew up with, discovering fascinating ingredients, meeting marvelous people, getting enchanted by the country’s rich biodiversity, and so much more.
Garcia’s book, Philippine Food Holidays (2023), won the 29th Gourmand Awards for “Best Food Tourism Book in the World.” Founded in 1995 by Edouard Cointreau, the Gourmand Awards is an institutional competition for food-culture content, participated by 205 countries. International media have hailed it as the Oscars for gastronomy books.
Clang Garcia's Philippine Food Holidays won the 29th Gourmand Awards as Best Food Tourism Book in the World (Photo courtesy of Clang Garcia)
She is the food and travel host of Cignal TV’s DiscoverEats, a top-rated program that spotlights unsung heritage dishes, culinary custodians, and cultural communities around the Philippines.
In 2023, Garcia was named the Philippine ambassador of the Word Food Travel Association (WFTA), the world’s leading authority on the food-and-beverage tourism industry. Founded in 2003 and based in Madrid, Spain, WFTA’s mission is to preserve and promote culinary cultures through tourism and hospitality, thereby creating economic prosperity.
Erik Wolf, WFTA’s executive director, declared: “As an international organization, it is important that we focus on the uniqueness of individual culinary cultures across the globe, and nearly all areas have great food stories to share. As the Philippine ambassador to our association, Clang Garcia will help us identify and create opportunities to drive revenue for the area’s food and beverage entrepreneurs, increase visitor arrivals and tax revenue for tourism offices and governments, and identify new newsworthy stories for local media to share.”
Clang Garcia jumps into the sea to harvest lato (sea grapes) in Pilar, Sorsogon (Photo courtesy of Clang Garcia)
Garcia’s book, Philippine Food Holidays (2023), won the 29th Gourmand Awards for “Best Food Tourism Book in the World.”
Her next book, The Secret Kitchens of Samar (2024), won the 30th Gourmand Awards Series Category. A project of Governor Sharee Ann Tan to place Samar’s cuisine on the culinary map of the Philippines and the world, Garcia embarked on a 30-day journey, documenting the province’s time-honored cuisines, stories, and cultures.
Clang Garcia has brought a fresh panache to Philippine cuisine. Her immersive approach—going straight to the action, documenting and sharing it with the world--makes her a gastronomy pundit without equal. Whatever food she focuses on joins a buffet of delights for many people to relish and remember.
The author wishes to thank Oscar and Beth de la Cruz and Dexjordi Lyle Sison for their assistance in the interview and the photos, respectively.
Tinola Nga Isda
Tinola nga Isda (Stewed Fish)
by Eldy Radomes of Samar, Philippines
Tinola is a traditional Filipino cooking technique of boiling. Clang Garcia learned this recipe during a cultural food mapping in Samar Province––to be launched soon into a five-volume book entitled Secret Kitchens of Samar. The publication will spotlight bearers of generational recipes.
Samar has a culture of painit (to warm the stomach), and this is their typical breakfast to kickstart the day. Garcia calls it a fast-food dish oozing with flavors and renders comfort. A great meal for busy people!
It is one of the recipes Garcia highlighted during a collab dinner with Chef Patrice Cleary of Purple Patch in Washington, D.C. She had her spin on it by placing the soup and flavorings into a blender, straining to extract the essence, turning it into a clear broth. A block of fish was placed on the broth, with halved cherry tomatoes and a lime wedge for pop colors.
Tinola nga Isda
Serves 2-4
Ingredients:
1 kilo malasugue (blue marlin), sliced
2 cups water
2 stalks tanglad (lemongrass), tied
6 stalks libas (souring leaves/jute leaves)
2 small sibuyas (onions), peeled and sliced
4 small kamatis (tomatoes), chopped
1 knob luya (ginger), sliced
2 kalungkagon; native bell pepper, sliced
¼ cup calamansi juice
4 stalks ganas (sweet-potato leaves)
1 Tbsp asin (sea salt)
Preparation:
1. Wash all the ingredients in running water.
2. Rub the fish all over with salt and set aside.
3. Remove the souring leaves from the stem and place them in a bowl.
4. Pound the lemongrass bulbs.
5. Pound the ginger.
Cooking:
Tip: Flavor the water in layers.
1. Boil the water with tanglad and souring leaves.
2. Put the onions, tomatoes, ginger, and chili. Allow to boil for five minutes.
3. Add the fish, cook for 5 minutes, then add the ganas and push it down into the broth.
4. In two minutes, turn off the heat.
5. Add the calamansi juice and stir.
***Video follows
Rey E. de la Cruz, Ed.D., Positively Filipino correspondent writes from Chicagoland when he is not loving the arts and longing for his hometown in the Philippines: Ballesteros, Cagayan. He was the first documented film student (University of the Philippines) and high-school film teacher (San Beda University) in the Philippines. An educationalist, he originated and disseminated the use of the ancient Philippine board game sungka as a teaching strategy. He was awarded the Gawad Balagtas for Drama in Filipino by UMPIL, the Philippines’ largest organization of writers, “for his pioneering creative spirit that imagined and expanded what can be possible for today’s modern theater.” Far-out dreams, visionary storytelling, and bold theatricality defined the plays he wrote and directed.
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